BBC News World Affairs Editor John Simpson publicly defended Oxfam on the day its executives appeared before a parliamentary select committee – which was a major news item on the Beeb. Simpson, who is paid up to £200,000-a-year by the taxpayer and is bound by the same impartiality rules as any BBC journalist, said of the charity: “I for one am not abandoning it now”. What is going on at the BBC at the moment?

The BBC website finally reported on the Corbyn spy scandal last night, after ignoring the main story in Westminster for days. Yet for some reason the Beeb’s coverage focused on attacking the press rather than holding the Labour leader to account. The headline of the first story was “Press still writing about Corbyn spy claims”, as if Auntie feels they shouldn’t be. The second story gave the game away by going after “press barons” – not sure how that pejorative term meets BBC impartiality guidelines. The story did at least reference a BBC reporter’s stupid question to Corbyn mocking the story by asking him “are you a Czech spy”. Just imagine the Beeb’s coverage if the leader of the Tory party had met a spy from a far right totalitarian regime…

Jeremy Corbyn has refused to answer legitimate questions all day from journalists about his Czech spy links. He is so unrattled by it all he has released a video in which he warns the free press “change is coming”. He also accuses the media of “going a little bit James Bond”. He does realise Bond was the good guy right?

The BBC have finally jumped on the Agent COB story, only to blow it with a stupid question. Rather than ask something pertinent about what information he handed to a communist spy, BBC finance reporter Steph McGovern went with: “Are you a Czech spy?” He replied: “No”. Well he would say that wouldn’t he…

The departure of Jim Waterson to the Guardian means Buzzfeed are looking for a new political editor. It’s a sweet gig: you get free pizza and beer on Fridays and only have to file once every couple of weeks. As ever MediaGuido brings you your runners and riders…

Emily Ashton, Buzzfeed: An internal hire is most likely as Lobby colleagues will not exactly have been convinced that the future is at American websites who promise to take over the world and then fire everyone. Ashton is a proper hack and chairman of the Lobby. Good bet.

Alex Spence, Buzzfeed: The other surviving member of the Buzzfeed politics team, scourge of Tory MPs with mildly embarrassing social media accounts. Short odds.

Alberto Nardelli, Buzzfeed: That scoop on the Brexit impact assessments came at a good time for him. Well-connected in the Cabinet Office.

Mark Di Stefano, Buzzfeed: The site’s former Australia pol ed moved over to be UK media correspondent as part of the recent Antipodean takeover. Funny on Twitter but limited knowledge of Westminster prior to six months ago.

And your external candidates:

Katy Balls, Spectator: Mr Steerpike can do the gossip, can do the politics and has the right chat for the Buzzfeed readership. But are they too base for her?

Mikey Smith, Mirror: Proficient in gifs and memes. Probably too old for the job.

Harry Cole, The Sun: Experience running Westminster’s best online news operation for five years. Likes cats.

Matt Chorley, Little Read Box: Why limit those LOLs to an email when you can join Buzzfeed and just tweet them out? Chorley’s inner milennial could shine…

Steve Walker, Skwawkbox:Buzzfeed are in awe of his virality. Time for him to join the MSM?

Matt Turner, Evolve Politics: Matt isn’t really a die-hard Corbynista, he only pretends because he couldn’t find any other way into journalism. Has a Lobby pass now, but surely he craves the real respectability only Buzzfeed can offer?

Owen Bennett, HuffPo: Should probably “keep his f***ing nose out of this”. If last week’s events are anything to go by…

The BBC News website still hasn’t covered the Agent COB spy scandal more than a week after it first broke. No news article, unlike its primary broadcast competitor Sky News and every major newspaper, even the Corbynista Independent. The sum total of the Beeb website coverage is a few lines buried in a round-up of the papers on Saturday. What about on TV and radio? There was a brief mention of the story in the paper review on the Today programme last week and again yesterday for a few seconds on the Andrew Marr show, when Marr said: “it does seem reading through it rather thin.” Never mind the very serious questions Corbyn has to answer about his judgment and what information he passed the Czechs, or the fact he is facing calls to explain himself before the Foreign Affairs select committee.

As Stephen Glover writes in today’s Daily Mail:

“The BBC’s refusal to report either the allegations against Corbyn, or the unequivocal denials of his aides, amounts to a dereliction of duty. It recalls the political bias it showed in the early Blair years until – following the manifest half-truths of the Iraq War – some even-handedness was restored.”

This has been the main story in Westminster over the last week and the national broadcaster is refusing to cover it…

The two egos guilty of ruining Sunday night Twitter this week were the Mail on Sunday’s Dan Hodges and Neil Henderson of the BBC’s #TomorrowsPapersToday. Henderson kicked things off by countering criticism over his failure to tweet last week’s MoS Brendan Cox front page citing “legal advice”. Dan then reached Peak Hodges when he proceeded to attempt to explain libel law to specialist libel barrister Greg Callus.

Isn’t a simple solution merely a commitment to retweet the headlines that the national newspapers print. I can’t quite see the circumstances where a court says “Neil Henderson retweeted this front page, let’s get him”.

Well, *I* won’t, but that’s because I’m a specialist libel barrister. If you’re not a specialist libel barrister, then like a dentist recommending tooth-brushing, I heartily recommend getting advice from one of my colleagues!

Buzzfeed’s political editor Jim Waterson has joined the Guardian as their new media editor. Looks like the competition just went up a notch. Will the last person to leave Buzzfeed please turn off the fridge full of free beer?

Last week MediaGuido brought you the news that Buzzfeed bosses had failed in their legal bid to prevent their workforce from unionising. Here’s the latest…

Buzzfeed’s Oxford Circus office (one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in London and a bonkers extravagance given recent layoffs) has always been deeply divided on unionisation. Around half opposed proposals for a union chapel from the start. These are the managers, editors, grown ups and proper hacks who realise that Buzzfeed employees get a much cushier deal than if they were churning at MailOnline or the Indy. The pro-union half are more ideological, more millennial and more likely to come from the quiz and cat gifs section of the office. They thought collective bargaining would improve their (already generous) pay and hours and help them avoid the sack. How did that work out…

In the latest round of redundancies, many of those pushing for unionisation left the company. Guido is assured there was no conspiracy by bosses to axe the union troublemakers. Yet far from healing a newsroom that has been torn apart, their departures have caused fresh problems…

When the Central Arbitration Committee ruled last week that Buzzfeed staff could proceed with unionisation plans, only for key agitators like Kelly Oakes and Francis Whittaker to have moved on, it left a phantom chapel. A ballot of remaining staff is now likely to decide whether unionisation will go ahead. Here’s the kicker: an aggressive lobbying operation is underway to try to convince Buzzfeed staff to back the union – remarkably it is being carried out by axed employees who no longer work there. Are they interfering out of comradely spirit, or because they want to screw over their former employer? None of them want to explain to MediaGuido why they have been trying to get their former colleagues to man the barricades and fight the boss class.

It is going down like a cup of sick with those on the other side, who see it as a hostile external attempt to undermine newsroom democracy. After a year of dealing with divisiveness which undermined their work, many remaining Buzzfeed staff are just glad to have jobs and want this to go away. Buzzfeed bosses are learning the hard way the perils of hiring a load of millennial Corbynistas…

Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook algorithm moves in mysterious ways. To Guido’s surprise, checking Facebook’s analytics shows that our engagement levels are actually up since the Zuck announced they will be deprioritising “publisher content which is just passively consumed and not talked about”. The above graphic shows the amount of engagement achieved on the Facebook pages of some of our rivals last week according to Facebook’s publisher insights. Not what many would have expected.

One of Guido’s rivals reckons what this really means is that plain vanilla reporting will be downgraded and news with views will be upgraded. Looks like engaging content is still king…

Following Guido’s story this morning, Jeremy Corbyn’s interview with a Corbynista YouTube star who sent N-word, “Jew” and Hitler tweets has been removed from the Guardian website “pending investigation“. Down the memory hole…

The latest ABCs make grim reading for the Mirror, whose daily and Sunday circulations are both down around 19.5% year-on-year. The decline is so steep in part because foreign and bulk sales were scrapped for both the daily and the Sunday. But are some lefty readers also being drawn away by the proliferation of new Corbynista sites? The old Labour Mirror cracking…

Guido cannot think what Deliveroo have to do in return for the endless puff pieces and positive coverage the Evening Standard gives them. In the last few months the Standard has written a glowing profile of Deliveroo’s founder and top and tailed multiple Deliveroo press releases on how they help feed the hungry and offer free food to their rivals’ customers. Well if you can’t use the editorship to help out your close friend and former adviser, now Deliveroo’s head of global comms, what’s the point?

Boris gives a speech reaching out to Remainers. How do some Remainers respond? With a torrent of personal abuse and conspiracy theories, refusing to engage with anything in the speech having already made up their minds beforehand, and calling him “mendacious” and “evil”, among other pleasantries:

Ludicrous situation at @BorisJohnson speech today when the Foreign Sec called @Channel4News Europe Editor @mattfrei to ask a question only for the @Policy_Exchange to veto in favour of throw away question on giving up cake for lent. Just what are they scared of?

All change at the Beeb this week. After missing out on the Newsnight job having made it to the final two, Victoria Derbyshire editor Louisa Compton is quitting the Corporation for Channel 4, where she will be the new commissioning editor at Dispatches. Safe to say the Tories will be relieved another candidate with very Channel 4 politics didn’t get the Newsnight gig.

Rob Burley, currently editor of Marr, has been promoted to become the new editor of the BBC’s live political programmes, the old job of Number 10 comms chief Robbie Gibb. He may not have as much time to spend flaming critics on Twitter in his new role…

And Katy Searle is the BBC head of Westminster. She was through to the final round to be Today programme editor at the beginning of the year. Plum job in charge at Millbank.